Collaborative Research: The interplay between host diet, immunity, reproduction, and the microbiome across an anthropogenic-disturbed landscape

合作研究：在人为干扰的景观中，宿主饮食、免疫、繁殖和微生物组之间的相互作用

• 批准号: 1752908
• 负责人: Susannah French
• 金额: $ 85.08万
• 依托单位: Utah State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1752908&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; interplay; between; host

It has recently become evident that microbes within the digestive tract of an animal are not only important for digestion but also influence overall health. An animal lives with trillions of microorganisms in its body, yet the implications of having most of these microorganisms are unknown. What is known thus far has focused primarily on the importance of microorganisms for digestion. However, current work suggests that an animal's microbes have effects that extend far beyond the gut, impacting the immune system and even stress. This project seeks to understand the importance of these microorganisms for health and survival in free-living populations of endangered iguanas that are exposed to changing and unnatural diets via ecotourism. The project will test how changing microbial communities and key physiological parameters relate to reproduction and survival in natural populations. Additionally, in the laboratory the researchers will experimentally test how changes in diet, stress, and microbes affect health and physiology in order to understand what is causing the observed changes in wild iguanas. Connecting physiological and microbial changes with animal population fluctuations in nature will be an innovative step forward. Finally, understanding both the occurrence and direction of these interactions will provide important insights into the effects of human-induced diet shifts on wildlife and much needed biological knowledge regarding threatened species. Humans have microbes in their digestive track as well, thus this project project may have broad implications on human health in relation to diet and stress. Many recent studies have identified significant connections between the microbiome and host health in model systems. However, mechanistic links between the microbiome and physiological functions that are key to health and survival remain mostly unexplored. Given that evolutionary history is one of the primary determinants of microbiome composition, the lack of taxonomic breadth severely restricts understanding of the physiological link between host habitat, diet, and immunity with microbiome composition and metagenomic function. There is also a paucity of research investigating microbial communities and health-related metrics within free-living animals. Thus, current knowledge of these relationships lacks critical ecological relevance and an understanding of the impact of environmental changes on endo-microbial communities. To address these current knowledge gaps, the project will study iguanas in both natural and captive settings, in order to test relationships among ecoimmune indices, anthropogenic-based diet changes, and the microbiome across a fragmented, insular landscape in The Bahamas. In the laboratory, the principal investigators will perform ecologically-relevant experimental manipulations in captive iguanas to test directional relationships in wild populations. The principal investigators will also investigate the stability of these associations over time in conjunction with a long-term mark recapture data set (37+ years) to estimate the influence of ecoimmunological, oxidative, and microbiome indices on reproductive output and survival across different populations exposed to variable human influence.This award was co-funded by the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems, the Division of Environmental Biology, and the Rules of Life Venture Fund within The Directorate for Biological Sciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

最近已经证明，动物消化道内的微生物不仅对消化很重要，而且还影响整体健康。动物体内有数万亿个微生物，但这些微生物中的大多数的影响是未知的。到目前为止，我们所知道的主要集中在微生物对消化的重要性上。然而，目前的研究表明，动物的微生物具有远远超出肠道的影响，影响免疫系统甚至压力。该项目旨在了解这些微生物对濒危鬣蜥自由生活种群的健康和生存的重要性，这些鬣蜥通过生态旅游暴露于不断变化的和不自然的饮食。该项目将测试微生物群落和关键生理参数的变化如何与自然种群的繁殖和生存相关。此外，在实验室中，研究人员将通过实验测试饮食、压力和微生物的变化如何影响健康和生理，以了解是什么导致了野生鬣蜥的变化。将生理和微生物变化与自然界中动物种群的波动联系起来将是一个创新的进步。最后，了解这些相互作用的发生和方向将提供重要的见解，人类引起的饮食变化对野生动物的影响和急需的生物学知识，对受威胁的物种。 人类的消化道中也有微生物，因此该项目可能对与饮食和压力相关的人类健康产生广泛影响。最近的许多研究已经确定了模型系统中微生物组与宿主健康之间的重要联系。然而，微生物组和生理功能之间的机制联系是健康和生存的关键，大多数尚未探索。鉴于进化历史是微生物组组成的主要决定因素之一，缺乏分类学广度严重限制了对宿主栖息地，饮食和免疫与微生物组组成和宏基因组功能之间的生理联系的理解。也有一个研究调查微生物群落和自由生活的动物健康相关指标的研究很少。因此，目前的知识，这些关系缺乏关键的生态相关性和了解的影响，环境变化对内生微生物群落。为了解决这些目前的知识差距，该项目将在自然和圈养环境中研究鬣蜥，以测试生态免疫指数之间的关系，基于益生菌的饮食变化，以及巴哈马群岛碎片化岛屿景观中的微生物组。在实验室，主要研究人员将在圈养鬣蜥中进行生态相关的实验操作，以测试野生种群的方向关系。主要研究者还将结合长期标记重捕获数据集调查这些关联随时间的稳定性（37年以上），以评估生态免疫学，氧化和微生物组指数对生殖输出的影响，并在不同人群中暴露于可变的人类影响的生存。该奖项是由综合有机系统部，环境生物学部，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

From mechanism to ecosystem: building bridges between ecoimmunology, psychoneuroimmunology and disease ecology

从机制到生态系统：在生态免疫学、心理神经免疫学和疾病生态学之间架起桥梁

• DOI: 10.1242/jeb.245858
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Journal of Experimental Biology
• 影响因子: 2.8
• 作者: French, Susannah S.;Demas, Gregory E.;Lopes, Patricia C.
• 通讯作者: Lopes, Patricia C.

Glucose tolerance of iguanas is affected by high-sugar diets in the lab and supplemental feeding by ecotourists in the wild

鬣蜥的葡萄糖耐量受到实验室高糖饮食和野外生态游客补充喂养的影响

• DOI: 10.1242/jeb.243932
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Journal of Experimental Biology
• 影响因子: 2.8
• 作者: French, Susannah S.;Hudson, Spencer B.;Webb, Alison C.;Knapp, Charles R.;Virgin, Emily E.;Smith, Geoffrey D.;Lewis, Erin L.;Iverson, John B.;DeNardo, Dale F.
• 通讯作者: DeNardo, Dale F.

Energetic investment associated with vitellogenesis induces an oxidative cost of reproduction

与卵黄发生相关的能量投入会导致繁殖的氧化成本

• DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12936
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Journal of Animal Ecology
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Webb, Alison C.;Iverson, John B.;Knapp, Charles R.;DeNardo, Dale F.;French, Susannah S.
• 通讯作者: French, Susannah S.